Harris, 29, was eliminated in March during Season 13 of The Bachelor by Jason Mesnick, just outside the show's infamous love triangle: Jason proposed to Melissa Rycroft on the finale, only to dump her on-air for Molly Malaney six weeks later on After the Final Rose, sparking an Internet fan firestorm.

Now Harris says she's falling in love with both technology consultant Ed Swiderski and business developer Kiptyn Locke.

The stories sound familiar to Trista Sutter, who was eliminated in the first season of The Bachelor only to find true love, and a husband, in Ryan Sutter on Bachelorette.

"If (Mesnick) was truly in love with two people, then why did he propose to one of them?" says Sutter, 36, who is blogging for E! Online this season and says the producers may have pressed for a proposal. "(Your) contract doesn't say you have to do what the producers want you to do. You do what you want to do." Her advice: "Listen to your gut. Don't let anyone tell you what to do."

She says she and Ryan, the only lasting couple in Bachelorette's first four seasons (and a rare success in the dating-show world), benefited from being first. The show "came from a good place when it started," she says. "People had a more innocent outlook and didn't really know what reality shows were."

And even though dating shows' public regard may be dimmed these days, with faded rock stars and rappers choosing from among low-rent fame hunters, she still sees this as a legitimate road to romance. "If this is what you want to do and truly feel you can find someone, go for it," she says. "I went on The Bachelorette to find true love. And if I hadn't, I would never have found Ryan, and I would never have given birth to two beautiful babies," Maxwell, almost 2, and Blakesley, 3 months.